Press Release

Researchers at NYU Tandon and NYU Abu Dhabi are the First to Convert Flat QR Codes into Complex Features Hidden within 3D-Printed Parts to Foil Counterfeiters and IP Pirates

Posted:August 20, 2018

Nikhil Gupta, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, and collaborators exploited the layer-by-layer AM printing process to “explode” QR codes within computer-assisted design (CAD) files so that they present several false faces — dummy QR tags — to a micro-CT scanner or other scanning device.

BROOKLYN, New York, Monday, August 21, 2018 – The worldwide market for 3D-printed parts is a $5 billion business with a global supply chain involving the internet, email, and the cloud – creating a number of opportunities for counterfeiting and intellectual property theft. Flawed parts printed from stolen design files could produce dire results: experts predict that by 2021, 75 percent of new commercial and military aircraft will fly with 3D-printed engine, airframe, and other components, and the use of AM in the production of medical implants will grow by 20 percent per year over the next decade.

A team at NYU Tandon School of Engineering has found a way to prove the provenance of a part by employing QR (Quick Response) codes in an innovative way for unique device identification. In the latest issue ofAdvanced Engineering Materials, the researchers describe a method for converting QR codes, bar codes, and other passive tags into three-dimensional features hidden in such a way that they neither compromise the part’s integrity nor announce themselves to counterfeiters who have the means to reverse engineer the part.

Noted materials researcher Nikhil Gupta, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at NYU Tandon; Fei Chen, a doctoral student under Gupta; and joint NYU Tandon and NYU Abu Dhabi researchers Nektarios Tsoutsos, Michail Maniatakos and Khaled Shahin, detail how they exploited the layer-by-layer AM printing process to turn QR codes into a game of 3D chess. Gupta’s team developed a scheme that “explodes” a QR code within a computer-assisted design (CAD) file so that it presents several false faces — dummy QR tags — to a micro-CT scanner or other scanning device. Only a trusted printer or end user would know the correct head-on orientation for the scanner to capture the legitimate QR code image.

“By converting a relatively simple two-dimensional tag into a complex 3D feature comprising hundreds of tiny elements dispersed within the printed component, we are able to create many ‘false faces,’ which lets us hide the correct QR code from anyone who doesn’t know where to look,” Gupta said.

The team tested different configurations — from distributing a code across just three layers of the object, to fragmenting the code into up to 500 tiny elements — on thermoplastics, photopolymers, and metal alloys, with several printing technologies commonly employed in the industry.

Chen, the study’s lead author, said that after embedding QR codes in such simple objects as cubes, bars, and spheres, the team stress-tested the parts, finding that the embedded features had negligible impact on structural integrity.

“To create typical QR code contrasts that are readable to a scanner you have to embed the equivalent of empty spaces,” she explained. “But by dispersing these tiny flaws over many layers we were able to keep the part’s strength well within acceptable limits.”

Tsoutsos and Maniatakos explored threat vectors to determine which AM sectors are best served by this security technology, a step that Gupta said was crucial in the research.

“You need to be cost-efficient and match the solution to the threat level,” he explained. “Our innovation is particularly useful for sophisticated, high-risk sectors such as biomedical and aerospace, in which the quality of even the smallest part is critical.”

A 2016 article by Gupta and a team of researchers that included Maniatakos and Tsoutsos in JOM, The Journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society explored how flaws caused by printing orientation and insertion of fine defects could be foci for AM cyber-attacks. The paper was the most-read engineering research that year among Springer’s over 245 engineering journals. In a paper last year in Materials and Design, Gupta detailed methods of inserting undetectable flaws within CAD files so that only a trusted printer could correctly produce the parts.

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country’s foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit http://engineering.nyu.edu.

About NYU Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and science campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly-selective liberal arts, engineering and science curriculum with a world center for advanced research and scholarship enabling its students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from 115 nations and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents. nyuad.nyu.edu/en/